1 week

I am asking for advice in choosing a software system, if it exists, that performs the functions described below. I am to a certain degree suspicious about the software I use, ideally I can either understand what exactly it does, or rely on authorities such as open OS foundations that accept such software into their repositories. Anyways, some good advice never hurts.

111 weeks

Many words have already been spoken and written about this: doorknobs, quills, and whatever things that are problematic to use if you have to operate them with hooves. Some say those are remnants of a human civilization, and that definitely could make Lyra happy. But how do ponies manage to deal with all that stuff?

I am asking for advice in choosing a software system, if it exists, that performs the functions described below. I am to a certain degree suspicious about the software I use, ideally I can either understand what exactly it does, or rely on authorities such as open OS foundations that accept such software into their repositories. Anyways, some good advice never hurts.

There is a certain Proofreader Group on Fimfiction. I speak as one of the admins of this group. It helps authors on the site find proofreaders, for free: volunteers fill in a questionnaire, describing themselves as a proofreader, and that data accumulates in a document system based on Google Docs. The documents are maintained by the group admins. Authors are supposed to look through the documents in order to pick up a proofreader(s) who best matches their story type and their needs (pre-reading, editing, correcting grammar, etc.). Then they get into contact and, hopefully, productively collaborate to make the best fanfiction they can.

The document system traces its history from ancient times, and its principles are described in this document. Several years ago a web-service was developed by me to automate searching the docs in order to find a proofreader. The Proofreader Group Database scans the docs regularly into one place, and provides a search form to search the data for proofreaders best matching an author's story. Proofreaders can list stories they have proofread in their profile. Authors can provide a recommendation note that goes to their proofreader's profile.

I am considering expanding the scope of the system so it can not only seek proofreaders for stories, but stories for proofreaders as well. In my fantasies, it also evolves into an interactive system, where proofreaders and authors don't need an admin to update their own data, and the database (the future version) can still be exported back to Google Docs (or imported from those), in case something goes terribly wrong.

So, currently we have a set of Google Docs that should remain (it is desirable) as a failsafe. Its format will need to be updated for better machine readability.

The docs contain one data record per proofreader, with their name, contacts, preferences, notes, and so on. The search-related data includes sets of tags (genre or tools preferences), numbers (timezones, story length preferences), "yes/no" values (is a particular proofreader accepting request for proofreading or not, for example). The search algorithm estimates proofreader's suitability based on how many tags in their preferences match the tags of an author's story, the proofreader's timezone proximity to that of an author, and other criteria that an author may choose. The same principle may be applied, in the future, to matching stories by proofreader's choice.

Authenticating via a Fimfiction or Google account seems like a good idea to me.

I consider myself capable of developing a custom system, eventually, that does all these things. But if there is an already existing solution that meets the requirements, or can be easily adjusted to meet those, it would be reasonable to just use that instead.

So, what do we have here?- a well-trusted software system;- free (like, no paying money);- with a web-interface;- around a database of proofreaders, authors, and fanfics (the list may be extended), that contains measurable values along with descriptive information;- a search engine that can select a best matching set based on how one values are close to the other;- visibility/privacy settings, user roles (users, moderators, admins);- Google Docs export/import;- external authentication (Fimfiction API, Google API);- low resource consumption (no gigabytes of RAM and dozens cores).

That's all I can think up so far. These aren't absolute requirements, but the more requirements are met, the better is considered a solution.

Thank you for reading. So, if you have heard of such a software, please share that knowledge with me. No guarantee it will do the job, but knowledge helps to make a better choice; it's an information-gathering stage. I could google it, but I don't know how they call such systems yet, to compose a search query.

P. S. Special thanks go to metallusionsismagic for editing the above text (except for a couple latest additions, including this post scriptum) to make it sound more English-like.